$12,000 NFTs Got STOLEN From Me— How To Avoid Losing Your Portfolio
Today I’ll be discussing a totally different topic than Nft marketing and case studies. Something happened to me that you would not wish on anyone, my NFTs have been hacked. And it could happen to you as well. Therefore I will explain how it happened to me and how you can prevent it before it happens to you.
As mentioned earlier, I experienced something today that I thought would not happen to me. Hundreds of hackers hunt down your NFTs every day. By using new methods, they know how to make victims continuously. In this article I explain my story. I will explain how you can prevent the same thing from happening to you.
At the end of the page, I put my new wallet. I don’t earn anything from my Medium posts because it has become a hobby. If you want to show your support, you can do so via the wallet at the bottom of the page.
Every day, enthusiastic users in the NFT space are woken up by their assets being stolen from their wallets. This is a major problem within the NFT space that still receives too little attention. A hack of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs on 26 April via Instagram resulted in damage of more than $3m. Below you can read how my NFTs were stolen.
A hacked Discord server caused chaos
Everyone knows the DMs and Twitter messages you get every day from so-called official accounts asking you to click on a link. Don’t fall for this and use your common sense. However, you should also beware of links distributed by the owner of the project. This is where I lost all my valuable NFTs.
It went like this: yesterday I received a message on the Discord server from a project for which I have some NFTs. There would be a free mint for all Nft owners. The message was written by the founder of the project and the message was in the official Discord at announcements. Because I’ve had such a free mint a few days before from another project, this didn’t seem strange to me. Besides, it was the founder who wrote this on the official Discord server.
And this is where it went wrong. While connecting my wallet to the minting website (which by the way was identical to the original one), my other NFTs were stolen. Worth $12,000. In the links below, you can see the transaction hash of my stolen NFTs. I unfortunately only found out about this today and can honestly admit that it brings a sense of shame. Why have I been so inattentive?
Shortly after my NFTs were stolen, the hacker sold them at a reduced price. As a result, OpenSea can no longer freeze the NFTs and the perpetrator is free to go about with his possessions. Fock. I would like to save others from the same fate by explaining how to prevent it.
From online to offline: keep your assets safe
I would have liked to have had the knowledge that I have now gained by talking to many people today. A Metamask wallet is extremely vulnerable to hackers because it has no extra security. The advantage of this is anonymity, which is highly appreciated in the crypto space. The disadvantage is the large range of vulnerabilities that make it easy to steal your assets.
So use the following things to make sure your assets stay safe with you and you don’t have to go through a stressful day like me:
- Buy a Ledger (Offline wallet): Metamask wallets are vulnerable because they are constantly available online. With an offline wallet, like the Ledger Nano X, you ensure that your NFTs are safely stored in a local place. Connect this wallet only to Opensea or use a separate wallet for OpenSea.
- Use a burner wallet: Did you get a free mint from your favorite Nft project? Then connect a burner Metamask wallet to the website to mint it. A burner wallet is a wallet that you use to do the dirty work, such as minting a new collection. If this wallet is stolen, you lose very little because there is not much on it. For this reason, always only put Ethereum on this wallet.
- Always keep your seed phrase offline: There are useful tools to keep your seed phrase offline and to protect it against extreme weather conditions (e.g. fire, water, etc.).
- Always stay alert on which links you click: Even if they are published by the owner on the official Discord channel. Hackers know how to hack Discords and publish their own links here.
Key takeaways
- $12,000 got stolen from me today because an official Discord server was hacked and the hacker pretended he was the founder
- Hundreds of hackers hunt down your possessions day and night. Be vigilant about this and protect your assets as best as you can
- You can secure your NFTs by using an offline wallet, burner wallet, keeping your seed phrase offline, and being keen on any link you see
Links and donation
I try to take the positive out of everything but today it has been made very difficult for me. Through this article, I hope to save others from the same fate. Do you want to support me? You can do so via the Ethereum address below. All help is greatly appreciated.
0x34733e1Be5f6EF05179b6A89654F949CEEf69491
Suspicious transaction:
- 0xf64360df09478dc0df260a62ee3558598a16b9beab611a6b986a4e0d2a7069a9
My stolen NFTs:
- 0xad71fe9b36cceecc6f289459f133552f17ed775fb44441773797d655190a6bfb
- 0x4affca65e37a44b1a279605062c18fcbcab931ebb490e062e2d936c7d357324f
- 0x9860fd0d03518e433c94759bdb79d0d9918bebdbee80ceab4cadee9518c23af9
- 0x070474961fdf4bc8314fba436ab3c32c582f522f65979437da7cd9dc71b597e7
